Currently when an e-mail is received by a receiving e-mail account, the recipient can open the e-mail and view its contents. The e-mail can then be saved to a file, re-routed by forwarding to another e-mail address, or deleted. Some systems, called Automated Responders, exist which analyze the contents of the e-mail and automatically perform a task, such as an automated response to a question sent to a technical support line. In these cases, the e-mail may be filed, routed or deleted automatically by the Automated Responder based on a pre-programmed set of rules that relate to the contents of the e-mail.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,732,101 Cook, 6,732,273 Byers and 5,509,000 Oberlander disclose systems in which e-mails are handled or routed according to certain rules or preferences. A problem with existing systems is that the e-mail being received must be filed or deleted based upon actions taken by the recipient, whether by a person, an expert system or a software component resident on the recipient's server. In the event that a person does the opening and filing process, labor costs are incurred and the potential for user error exists. In the event an expert system does the opening and filing, there is a high probability of error as most expert systems are prone to misinterpret the data in the e-mail. In some systems the sender must interact with a software tool on the recipient's server prior to sending the e-mail, which causes inconvenience or obstacles for the sender.
There is therefore a need for a system in which the e-mail can be composed by the sender asynchronously, without concurrently contacting the recipient, so that the e-mail can be automatically processed. It would be additionally useful if the system of identifying the e-mail for automatic routing or filing is impervious to tampering or decoding by unauthorized personnel, so that e-mails can be automatically filed with the certainty that they have not been misidentified or fraudulently labeled.